Holy Moly, is Eclipse the worst IDE ever?

[douglasb]

Worst IDE ever? JGrasp for the win!

 

[Pia]

Oh, now I remember another thing.

Customizing the look is an utter mess. No concept of "themes" built in. All the colors and font attributes are attached directly to smallest Java syntax details and have to be micromanaged.

I wouldn't so much mind this stupidity if I was coding Java, because the 3rd party "Eclipse Color Themes" plugin solves the problem of replacing the whole Java syntax color set at a time, but I'm using Eclipse for Scala. Since Eclipse doesn't do anything like supporting orthogonal "color schemes" mapping colors to abstract colors, and "syntax schemes" mapping abstract colors to actual language syntax, the Scala plugin and the ECT plugin can't really play together it seems. The Scala plugin comes with its own color micromanagement dialog specifically for Scala syntax. I had to manually define pretty much every color to get a nice, readable dark color scheme.

Also: why have people not yet figured out that the right way to define syntax colors is to let the user click on an element in the actual code, immediately see what type of syntax it is, and immediately change the color without leaving the code? As opposed to forcing the user to enter a modal dialog, spending minutes looking at a textbox of hundreds of syntax element names and guessing which one Eclipse might equate with that particular thing.

 

[Markbnj]

Customizing the look is an utter mess. No concept of "themes" built in. All the colors and font attributes are attached directly to smallest Java syntax details and have to be micromanaged.

The next version... 4, is it? ... is supposed to have support for actual themes.

 

[Pia]

The next version... 4, is it? ... is supposed to have support for actual themes.

To be fair, my criticism might only be valid up to some point last year because that's when the Scala IDE distribution I'm using was built. Mainline Eclipse's version 4 seems to be out already, dunno how extensively it fixes theming. I'm actually more interested in whether they've done anything about the shitty editor and keyboard shortcuts.

I can't say I'm super hopeful considering they've already had a decade to get this basic functionality right.

 

[Obsoleet]

Vim Superiority.

 

[BrightCandle]

Themes are hardly an essential, this isn't a music player.

The core features of the ide and fast and reliable as well as being easily accessible. That is ultimately what is needed and you just have to spend time learning how to use it well. Eclipse is an excellent ide, and the only one I know of that support incremental compilation, which is a killer feature on a real project.

 

[Pia]

Themes are hardly an essential, this isn't a music player.

Themes are hardly essential for a music player. You listen to a music player. You look at an IDE for hours a day.

But never mind that even lightweight editors operating in terminals have supported color schemes from ancient times, and Eclipse doesn't. I don't need to fiddle with every little thing. I'd be happy if Eclipse offered just one (1) usable light color scheme and one (1) usable dark color scheme so it would not be completely jarring to jump between it and all my other tools which are dark. The 2012 version I have does not do that.

The core features of the ide and fast and reliable as well as being easily accessible.

Well, Eclipse falls on its face then. The editor is a laggy, user-hostile piece of shit. This is the first IDE I have ever seen where I can't even switch between tabs without going through a dialog (which is, apparently, its own OS window based on how the menu bar blinks out of existence when the minimenus are open, and Eclipse lags half a second upon switching to this other window and back.). I'm running Eclipse on OS X, and it doesn't feel like an OS X application, or like a Windows application, or like any Linux application I have used. I have ran it way back in the past on Windows and it was no better on that platform. The default keyboard shortcuts have no internal logic and are supremely unergonomic. What incredible moron thought cmd-F6 was a perfect choice for switching between tabs? (By the way, it looks to me like plain "F6" isn't used at all. Maybe the devs are reserving it for something more important like a future FactoryEclipseAdapterComponentWizard shortcut.)

That is ultimately what is needed and you just have to spend time learning how to use it well. Eclipse is an excellent ide, and the only one I know of that support incremental compilation, which is a killer feature on a real project.

Okay. How do I make the editor usable?

 

[douglasb]

Eclipse is an excellent ide, and the only one I know of that support incremental compilation, which is a killer feature on a real project.

Visual Studio supports it out-of-the-box for VB. Net, and if you use Resharper, it supports it for C# as well.

 

[BrightCandle]

Try ctrl + page up and ctrl+page down for switching between adjacent tabs if that is what you want. There is also ctrl + shift + e which gives you a dialog showing all tabs open which you just type into and press enter to jump further. There are a variety of other mechanisms for switching between tabs, of which ctrl + F6 is one but I find it less convenient than the pgup and pgdown. Of course if switching further is part of your style then you may find adjusting the shortcuts more to your liking, it is after all completely configurable.

 

[007ELmO]

Lol I'm programming in Eclipse the past 4 months. It has some positives, but it also has a lot of negatives. I can't understand why they had to use Java to run an environment that programs Java.

 

[dook43]

Perhaps for you, if you didn't use anything better, or didn't understand its limitations. However, VS is generally despised by people coding more than Windows software. Debugger is surely nice, but that's about it. It might serve well for Windows only developing, but world is moving away from that.

Maybe your world. Not my world.

2. Both support many platforms and compilers, while VS works only on Windows and with MS compilers

http://visualgdb.com/

3. Both Nebeans and Eclipse own VS when it comes to understanding and navigating code. VS editor can't understand OO code at all, and for example it can't build proper call graph if function is virtual (same function name exist in different classes). On the other hand, Eclipse and NB use compiler to parse the code.

What? Have you even used Visual Studio?

4. VS has weak integration with SVN and other configuration management tools, while with other two you can do anything you want within the IDE.

http://www.visualsvn.com/ - Svn plugin
http://visualhg.codeplex.com/ - Mercurial plugin
http://visualstudiogallery.msdn.microsoft.com/63a7e40d-4d71-4fbb-a23b-d262124b8f4c - Git plugin

5. VS has very backwards way of setting up projects. Project files must be added via GUI. Project options must be setup in GUI. Any file you add to project will be compiled, so you can't easily support multiple configurations. A more powerful ways are used in C/C++ with makefiles and Java Ant/Maven. Just flexibility is not there - there is only one way to do projects.

This simply isn't true. Again, have you ever used VS? How about the command line MSBuild.exe?

One thing we can take away from this post is that haters are, most assuredly, going to hate.

 

[bshole]

I've done my embedded C programming in AVR Studio and Freescale Codewarrior.

I have CodeWarrior as well. Its GUI is a bad joke. I do all of my code development in CodeWright with a VI keymap. I mapped all the CodeWarrior command line compile functions into CodeWright. I am constantly amazed at how poor the latest IDEs are when compared to CodeWright, a product that has been dead for nearly 10 years now.

 

[smackababy]

I've had no problems with eclipse, RAD or myEclipse. The HTML / XML / Struts editors are awful, but I just use the source text editor and get along just fine.

 

[tatteredpotato]

Vim Superiority.

Throw some Tmux in there and you have the perfect IDE.

 

[Crusty]

Throw some Tmux in there and you have the perfect IDE.

I've always used screen because it just does what I need and I've needed more features. Is there anything in particular about Tmux that you like?

I have however configured Visual Studio to use VIM keybindings because it's just so much better, even though I've started doing all of my C++ work in Linux... I haven't opened VS in at least 6mos now.

 

[Karstein]

I use Eclipse for Python but my foray into using it for Android development was definitely a frustrating initial experience.

 

[GregGreen]

I hate Eclipse, but I use it everyday at work. I die a little inside each time it starts up.

Of course, I write JS almost exclusively at work and only use Eclipse because I'm too lazy to fix the Ant Hot Deploy method we have to work with Sublime Text 2 :/

I have a lot of problems with switching between tabs in Eclipse (and Win7 now that I think about it), which seems simple, but I think its a "used to OS X" type of PEBKAC error :/

 

[r2o2]

I have found using Eclipse on Win7 to be much harder than Visual Studio 2012 - it is simply a much less polished product, and it often behaves non-intuitively. I am struggling to find a way to even just build a project or rebuild it. Simple things seem unduly complicated. Eclipse is much harder work than working at the Linux command prompt.

 

[smackababy]

I still don't understand the hate for Eclipse. I've used it for years (well myEclipse and RAD) because everything I've worked on deploys to a WebSphere App server and don't have any problems with it. Maybe I am just not picky or haven't used anything better.

 

[cytg111]

Themes are hardly essential for a music player. You listen to a music player. You look at an IDE for hours a day..

This is spot on, if we as devs cannot make tools, usability friendly tools, for ourselves, how can we hope to make tools for others? I'd like to think the envoriments we use should set the standard for the code that push on.
And Eclipse is just terrible, no usability, will make an i7 with a fast SSD feel slow and is just buggy as hell.

 

[cytg111]

I still don't understand the hate for Eclipse. I've used it for years (well myEclipse and RAD) because everything I've worked on deploys to a WebSphere App server and don't have any problems with it. Maybe I am just not picky or haven't used anything better.

Give IntelliJ a run for the money (zero $ for the community edition). It is just that good. I am forced to work with Eclipse at day, if I code java at home it is intellij hands down. (i might use netbeans for quick and dirty GUI fix if its needed).

I think alot of the problems with Eclipse, beyond the usability madness, is with conflicting and poorly written plugins, you can get to a bloated pos fast if you're not careful(and it is possible that the packagers of myEclipse has a foot on this).

 

[tfinch2]

And Eclipse is just terrible, no usability, will make an i7 with a fast SSD feel slow and is just buggy as hell.

This thread is still alive?

I used Eclipse for RCP and RAP Developers within a VM hosted on my laptop for a couple of years. The VM has one vCPU (host laptop has an i7) and 1 GB of RAM. Host laptop also has a spinning drive. My typical workspace has 200+ projects for different plug-ins we are working on.

I've never really noticed any slowdown, crashes, or bugs that you speak of.

The only big issue I have with Eclipse is how it handles resources and detects changes to files in your workspace done outside of Eclipse.

As far as usability goes, Eclipse does have a learning curve, but once I got it down I found it very intuitive. Problems can occur when 3rd party plug-ins do not follow design guidelines/best practices.

What I find most impressive about Eclipse is their release model. It is a hugely distributed project with many moving parts. They are able to plan features, consistently hit their dates, and deliver releases reliably on an annual basis; all for an open source project. A lot of different projects (both OSS and paid) could learn a lot from a release management perspective.

 

[cytg111]

This thread is still alive?

I used Eclipse for RCP and RAP Developers within a VM hosted on my laptop for a couple of years. The VM has one vCPU (host laptop has an i7) and 1 GB of RAM. Host laptop also has a spinning drive. My typical workspace has 200+ projects for different plug-ins we are working on.

I've never really noticed any slowdown, crashes, or bugs that you speak of.

The only big issue I have with Eclipse is how it handles resources and detects changes to files in your workspace done outside of Eclipse.

As far as usability goes, Eclipse does have a learning curve, but once I got it down I found it very intuitive. Problems can occur when 3rd party plug-ins do not follow design guidelines/best practices.

What I find most impressive about Eclipse is their release model. It is a hugely distributed project with many moving parts. They are able to plan features, consistently hit their dates, and deliver releases reliably on an annual basis; all for an open source project. A lot of different projects (both OSS and paid) could learn a lot from a release management perspective.

So our milages vary .. have you tried intellij for comparison ? It is especially on huge codebases it chokes on me.

On the thing about files modified outside the IDE, Eclipse cant do that, MSVS can cause it ties into the OS and does file system watching, IntelliJ does it too, but it ships (and JNI's I suppsoe) with a couple of native dll's to do it. Eclipse ? SOL im afraid.

 

[Markbnj]

This thread is still alive?

It will probably never die, because there will always be someone who just had a bad experience and needs a place to vent .

 

[Broheim]

I was forced to do java and use eclipse for the first 3 semesters of school. C# and vs2012 + free resharper is infinitely more enjoyable, no clue why they waited with the good stuff until the 4th semester (although android programming sucks donkeybawls, I'd rather have been without that and spent more time doing C#).


my worst experience with eclipse was doing JSF with the glassfish plugin, dear lord that was awful. performance couldn't have been worse and every now and then the damn thing would just stop working for no damn reason, the only surefire way to fix it was to reformat your computer and start over. JSF itself was pretty awful too.